The national nutrition inquiry of 1995 has pointed out a tendency of consuming too much fat. Due also to the heightened interest in health, the demand is increasing on cheese, cream, and other fat products, which have lowered fat content. However, there is a tendency that the demand on low-fat spread is decreasing.
Low fat spread, as well as other spreads, is a variety of water-in-oil type emulsified fat compositions, made by a process including the steps of refrigerating a water-in-oil type emulsion comprising of aqueous and oil phases to solidify and kneading the solidified material thus obtained. Aqueous and oil phases, which do not miscible each other under normal conditions, are emulsified and dispersed each other by controlling their ratio or selecting the emulsifying and dispersing methods in order to make a water-in-oil type emulsion for the production of such spread. However, depending on the ratio of the two phases or the method of emulsification and dispersion, various problems concerning the production process and the qualities of the final products could arise. Such problems could include phase-conversion in the emulsifying step or the subsequent steps for sterilization, cooling and solidification and the rough textures in the final products. Especially in the case of the low-fat spread, its emulsion state is unstable, because the ratio of the aqueous phase to the oil phase is higher than that of the normal spread, thus more likely to result in problems described above. In order to solve these problems, it was necessary to add a stronger emulsifier or a larger amount of an emulsifier and a stabilizer for the low-fat spread production. However, the low-fat spread containing the stronger emulsifier or a larger amount of the emulsifier and the stabilizer had problems that since its emulsion state was not easily broken, the preferable flavor could not release in the mouth and that it did not melt well in the mouth. Therefore, such low-fat spreads have not been always preferred by the consumer.
One of the objects of present invention is to solve the above-described problems in the prior art. That is, the present invention provides a salt-containing low-fat spread, which has no problems in its production process and which has good properties concerning melting in the mouth and swift destruction of its emulsion state (which is referred as "demulsification"), in order to release a preferred flavor and taste when it is once placed in the mouth.